1. Field of the Invention
This specification relates to a clothes treating apparatus having a drying function capable of drying clothes and the like, and particularly, to a clothes treating apparatus having a drying function capable of fast drying a large quantity of targets to be dried by employing a heater assembly, separate from a cabinet having a drum and the like therein, for drying such large quantity of targets to be dried.
2. Background of the Invention
In general, a clothes treating apparatus refers to an apparatus having at least one of a dehydrating function and a drying function for clothes. For example, a drying machine as one of clothes treating apparatuses is an apparatus for drying a target to be dried by introducing the target to be dried into a drum and evaporating moisture contained in the target with supplying air into the drum. A washing machine having a drying function is an apparatus capable of drying clothes, which has been dehydrated after washed, with hot air.
A typical dryer includes a drum rotatably installed within a main body or a cabinet and receiving clothes therein, a driving motor for driving the drum, a blower fan for generating the flow of air supplied into the drum or discharged from the drum, and a heating device for heating up the air introduced into the drum. The heating unit may be implemented as a heater type which uses high temperature electric resistance heat generated by electrical resistance or heat of combustion generated by burning gas.
In the meantime, air discharged out of the drum contains moisture from the clothes within the drum, to become air in a state of high temperature and high humidity. Here, dryers may be classified, according to how to process such hot humid air, into a circulating type in which hot humid air is cooled below a dew point temperature through a heat exchanger while circulating without being discharged out of a dryer such that moisture contained within the hot humid air can be condensed to be resupplied, and an exhausting type in which hot humid air passed through a drum is discharged directly to the outside.
The aforementioned typical dryer includes a drum, a driving motor, a blower fan and a heater all disposed within a single main body. Hence, a size of a cabinet or main body and sizes of elements such as the driving motor and the heater are decided depending on the size of the drum.
Here, a capacity of a dryer depends on not only the size of the drum but also a quantity of air supplied into the drum and a quantity of heat or energy to be supplied by the heater. Therefore, even if the drum is large in size, if air and heat are not sufficiently supplied, a drying performance of the dryer does not come up to the size of the drum. Also, even for a drum of the same size, if air and heat are fully supplied into the drum, the drying performance of the dryer may be more improved.
A household clothes dryer is installed within a limited space, which results in a limited size of a main body of the dryer. Accordingly, the size of the blower fan and the size of the heater are limited. Hence, a drying capacity of the dryer is limited, but there is not a problem because of less necessity of using a capacity more than that.
However, a dryer which is used in a commercial place such as a laundromat or an industrial dryer must have a capacity, which is large enough to dry a large quantity of clothes. Therefore, a dryer with a large capacity has to be used.
To dry the large quantity of clothes, the main body of the dryer may have an increased size and accordingly the blower fan and the heater as well as the drum may also be fabricated with large sizes. Here, a separate dryer main body is fabricated for the industrial dryer, unlike the household clothes dryer. That is, the main body of the household clothes dryer is unable to be used in the industrial dryer. Consequently, a manufacturer has to produce a separate dryer main body, and a user is unable to use the dryer main body which is being used at home.
Meanwhile, even with a structure of connecting a separate heater onto a main body of a dryer, the heater may be overheated due to its large capacity. A thermostat may be used to prevent the problem.
A thermostat may control the heater to be turned on or off by measuring ambient temperature. When external air sufficiently flows, the external air is fully supplied into the heater, which reduces the probability that the heater is overheated. However, without a flow of external air, the heater is overheated and accordingly a heating wire of the heater may be expanded or shorted by heat. Therefore, the thermostat has to be installed at a position where a great temperature difference is detected between a temperature of air when air heated by the heater flows and a temperature of air when such air does not flow. However, it is difficult to correctly set a point at which a great air temperature difference is detected. This may cause the thermostat to erroneously operate, resulting in an occurrence of a problem associated with safety.
Further, the thermostat has to be mounted at a position spaced apart from the heater by a predetermined gap. If not, it may be affected by radiant heat of the heater. This may cause the thermostat to operate erroneously.